First Bloom of 2011

And the prize goes to…

Hellebore (details unknown)

It started out as a cutting from one of the SAGBUTT (Seattle Area Garden Bloggers United To Talk) gardeners, Karen of Gardenwalks if memory serves. During a 2009 gathering I received a cutting from her garden. Last year the plant showed marked growth but it gave no blooms. I first noticed it blooming about a week ago. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I was able to catch a break from the winds and rains to attempt some pictures. Glad I took the time since today the winds and rains are back.

Nearby, under the lilac bush, the snowdrops have pushed up and are in a holding pattern as are most of our other spring bulbs.

These snowdrops still have to wait a spell before they get to shine. But typically around here, February brings a couple weeks of warm, dry, sunny weather.  Come on February! Hurry up and get here already!

First Fig

A-N-T-I-C-I-P-A-T-I-O-N!

 

The Wenches have been anxiously awaiting the moment when we’ll be able to pick our first fig. We’ve been waiting almost TWO years for this! Last summer we had a few figs but we lost our meager crop to the birds because we weren’t smart enough to net our little tree. This year we made sure to put the net on early! That’s Mugsy keeping an eye on the ONE mature fig. But it’s not quite ready yet. And you shouldn’t pick figs until they are perfectly ripe as they won’t ripen any further after they’ve been picked.

How do you know when it’s time? In Spanish we say that the fig is ready when it has the neck of a hanged man, the clothes of a poor one, and the eye of a widow.

The neck of a hanged man means that the stem has begun to dry out and the fig begins to droop. We have drooping!

The clothes of a poor man means that the skin of the fig has begun to wrinkle. We have wrinkling!

And the eye of a widow means that when you open up the fig it “weeps” a drop of syrupy sweetness.  We have weeping!

Our first fig was absolutely worth the wait!

Who needs patio furniture anyway?

We realized last summer that we hardly ever sat on the patio because it was too hot and sunny. Also, our patio is right in line with our neighbor’s deck so we don’t have much privacy. So we moved the table and chairs to a relatively flat section of the lawn under the shade of the cherry tree. Then we filled the patio with pots of berries, herbs, vegetables and flowers.

Now we have a mixture of edibles and ornamentals as well as plants to attract pollinators and plants needing pollinators.

Between the herbs and flowers, we have lots of bees.

Here’s a close up. Look at all that pollen!

Last summer we had fabulous eggplants. So we tried again this year. Unfortunately, it’s been so cool this summer, I’m not sure we’re going to have any eggplants. The flowers only appeared last week.

On a whim (and after feeling giddy about our eggplant success last year), we decided to try melons in the Earthbox this year. Well they sure are vining out over the herbs and reaching for the garden bed!

Wait!  What’s that in Curmdugeon’s hand? A baby melon! Come on little one!  Grow! Grow!

We finally wised up and put bird netting over the fig tree, strawberries, and blueberries, which are all growing in pots on the patio. Now we are harvesting a bit of fruit for ourselves – not just losing it all to the birds and other varmints.  Here’s today’s harvest of ‘Sunshine Blue’ blueberries and ‘Seascape’ strawberries.

So we have flowers and fruit, herbs and vegetables, lots of bees, and even hummingbirds visiting the salvia and agastache. Why on earth would we want patio furniture here?

Ten More things that happened...

...while we were taking a break from blogging.

1. Our pineapple sage started blooming.

2. We saw a rainbow of color in our garden!  Well, actually it was all on one plant - the 'Bolivian Rainbow' pepper.

3. We grew a wall of tomatoes.  They liked the warm brick wall so well that they climbed higher than the support stake. So then we tied them to the lamp post and the cable lines for support.

When we finally took it down, we harvested 5 pounds of green 'Red Grape' tomatoes, which then became green tomato jam.

4. Our friends W&M came down from Victoria, BC and we visited the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Calder's Eagle in the foreground and the Space Needle in the background. 

Wing Nut waxed nostalgic when she saw this one. In this age of computers, do people know what this is and does anyone still use it?

5. Wing Nut bought 25 pounds of organically grown squash at work to compensate for the damned rats/squirrels/raccoons eating all of ours!  Rant Woman joined us one evening for a squash smorgasbord. We sampled white acorn, potimarron, and delicata. YUM!

6. We added another unusual plant to our hillside hummingbird garden -- Dicliptera suberecta or Uruguayan Firecracker Plant. It's a tender perennial so let's hope we don't have another snowpocalypse this winter.

7. In fear of a hard frost, we harvested all remaining tomatoes and peppers and most eggplants.  We then lost the kitchen counter.

The little round ones in the basket and in the boxes are Sungolds. The big yellow ones are Persimmon. The big red one is Italian heirloom. The smaller red ones are Langley Silver Tiger. And the handful of little ones on the counter at the very bottom of the pic are Red grape.

We harvested more beautiful and delicious eggplants and two types of hot peppers -- Thai hots (upper left) and Malaguetas (upper right).

8. Curmudgeon saved purple orach seeds for next year. 

The plant sends up seed spikes that are 5-6 feet tall. The dark purple leaves are edible--we use them in salad mixes.

Anyone need a few hundred seeds?

9. Wing Nut attended the Puget Sound Mycological Society's Annual Wild Mushroom festival.  Who knew mushrooms came in so many shapes and sizes and colors? There was even a blue-green one that smelled like anise (Clitocybe odora). Now I want to try growing mushrooms too.  Maybe Santa will bring me a kit from Fungi Perfecti.

10. We attended the October meeting of the Seattle Area Garden Bloggers United To Talk (SAGBUTT) at the Lake Wilderness Arboretum.  The fall colors were marvelous as was the company!

P.S. to our SAGBUTT friends  -- we'll put the eggplant & tomato salad recipe up on the next post.

Ten things that happened while we were taking a break from blogging.

1.  Our pineapple lily bloomed.

This is Eucomis 'Oakhurst'.

 

2. We learned that the pepper seeds that Curmudgeon successfully sprouted belong to capsicum pubescens--rocoto or manzano peppers. The seeds came from a pepper bought at the grocery store. Curmudgeon saved them because they were quite unusual--they were black. This variety can grow to 5 feet and can tolerate sub-freezing temps. We had 8 of these perennial pepper trees in the potager. Four have now gone to good homes.

3.  War was declared on whatever has been eating our winter squash. Operation Pantyhose was launched after the destruction seen below.

Unfortunately OP did not deter nor slow down whatever it was--racoon and squirrel were top of our list.

So Curmudgeon escalated to Operation Cayenne Pantyhose. She became a bit obsessed and Wing Nut had to go without cayenne in her kitchen as Curmudgeon would not hand it over.  Early one morning, as she was leaving for work, Wing Nut caught a glimpse of something climbing up the bamboo tomato cage. She thought it was a squirrel, but as she got closer she realized there was no bushy tail. It turned out to be far far worse than we thought--Rats!  Eeeeewwwww!!!!!

4.  We attended the Tilth Harvest Festival.

5.  We participated in a Bat Walk sponsored by Bats Northwest.

6.  We read A Short History of the Honey Bee. And we are now on a quest to find locally made honey.

7.  We put in a fall garden -- lettuces, radishes, arugula, cilantro, mustard greens, beets and carrots.

8.  We visited the Museum of Glass in Tacoma with our friends C&M from Minnesota.

And found an artichoke on the ceiling of the Seafoam Pavillion, which is part of the Dale Chihuly Bridge of Glass.

9. Our crocus sativus popped up and bloomed. Now we understand why saffron is so expensive!

10. Our blog won "Best Blog Name" over on Blotanical.  Thanks everyone!

 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day -- August 2009

I'm only going to share one flower. But it's a real stunner. I consider it by far the most gorgeous flower in the garden right now.

Here is the plant that produced this flower.

And finally, here is the fruit--considered a berry--produced by this flower.

For more GBBD posts visit Carol over at May Dreams Garden.

Garden Woes

We head into July with temps just over the 80 degree mark. No rain in sight.  We're not complaining, mind you. It actually feels like summer. But there are a few problems in the garden.

First up, the potatoes.

 

It starts with a leaf slowly turning yellow.

Then it spreads and several leaves are yellow.

Death eventually takes the whole plant.

I assumed it was blight. At least it's a disease of great historical importance. But Wing Nut said it wasn't. Someone at the nursery suggested a mineral deficiency of some sort. So we gave them some compost tea. Died quicker than you can say "Great Irish Potato Famine". When we yank out a dead plant we find some teeny-tiny potatoes but nothing else suspicious. But today Wing Nut yanked out a plant and there was a very nice sized potato, half of which was mushy. Hey I thought potatoes were supposed to be easy to grow? This is the second year we've tried to grow potatoes. Three years ago we weren't even trying and we got lovely purple potatoes.

Next up, the zinnias.

Pretty orange flower. Okay, pretty washed out orange flower. But do you see those brownish stringy things on the right? That's what's left of several leaves. On the left you can see a leaf with the damage in progress. And below are a couple more pics.

Kind of creepy, no? The zinnias are around the squash in an attempt to attract pollinators in the hopes of FINALLY getting some decent squash.  Should we be worried about the squash? Or should we leave the zinnias so that the leaf skeletonizers will eat the flowers instead of the squash?

And finally, the lawn.

I thought "knee high by the 4th of July" was an old adage about corn, not dandelions. I know, I know. I'm doing the bees a favor. But it's a wee bit scary when Diva Dog is almost lost amidst the sea of yellow.

There should be a country song about garden woes...